


i like you sometimes (i love you always)

by vivalagay



Series: #stanhoneypup (honeypup one shots) [9]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Relationship, Fluff, M/M, there's really no plot ?? lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-17 05:34:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13652466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivalagay/pseuds/vivalagay
Summary: Minhyuk's favorite Jooheon is a barefaced Jooheon.





	i like you sometimes (i love you always)

**Author's Note:**

> in [this](https://youtu.be/78eOapVE51E?t=11m58s) video mh talks about how the night before jh was resting on the couch shirtless but he hadn't washed his makeup off so mh cleaned his face for him and jh smiled and laid still and said, "wow, awesome." 
> 
> my best friend suggested that this would make for a cute one shot like forever ago. i agree!!! i included some other things that honeypup have talked about too!! like how mh peeks under the curtain when jh is showering and scares him lmao
> 
> sidenote,,, (just in case you didn't know) "-ah" is the incorrect suffix for someone who is older, but jooheon does address minhyuk informally sometimes, so he also does it with minhyuk here too ^^

Subtlety doesn't quite sympathize with Minhyuk and his fluttering heart.

He tries at least, some awful attempt of discretion as his eyes trail off to Jooheon's reflection beside his own, and it's just hard when Jooheon is always so cute.

Face scrubbed clean, a light smudge of black still visible on his eyes like a stain, he looks natural with his droopy eyelids and damp hair from after his shower—somehow so cute, so beautiful, the way that always has Minhyuk's eyes shining with admiration the most. Jooheon catches his gaze in the mirror and sighs into the purple towel he dabs at his face.

"Do you really have to stare?"

"Do you have to be so cute?" Minhyuk shoots back.

It's as discrete as Minhyuk can be, honestly, and anyway, it's taken only a few seconds to come to the conclusion that he doesn't care. His arms snake around Jooheon's waist, hugging his displeased member into his chest where his warm body fits so easily.

"Hyung," Jooheon groans, lazily tussling in his grip, "you see me getting ready for bed."

"I do," Minhyuk smiles. He teasingly squeezes Jooheon a little tighter and laughs quietly at the sharp breath of air that leaves Jooheon's lips, head lowered in exasperation as if he isn't smiling, dimples deep and eyes squinted. 

He always smiles, because that's how they work. Jooheon pouts and whines like the baby he is, and Minhyuk clings onto him with a grin so perceptible of how happy and whole Jooheon makes him feel. 

"Don't you think you've bothered me enough?" Jooheon asks, naturally resuming his night routine. Minhyuk cuddles him into his chest and watches as Jooheon unscrews the lid of his facial cream, having to drag Minhyuk's limp body around with him with each little movement. "You were over me all day, and I was good and let you."

Minhyuk nods. "After you whined."

"I shared my coffee," Jooheon reminds him, "and you repay me by being annoying and scaring me in the shower. _Again_."

"It's simple," Minhyuk says. "Close the door if you don't want me peeking in the shower."

Jooheon pouts and rubs the white cream into his cheeks. "I can't close the door if I'm in the washroom by myself. You know that. You just want to bully me."

Minhyuk laughs into the trimmed hair at Jooheon's nape where the scent of his shampoo is strong and herbaceous.

"Come on," he giggles, pinching Jooheon's sides in his palms. "You just make it way too easy to bully you."

"Do not."

"Do too." Jooheon grimaces at his reflection and softly jerks an elbow into his stomach. "You're too scared to even close the curtain because of ghosts."

"Just bring up my deepest secrets now, don't you?" He screws the lid back on the night cream and blindly sets it on the sink where Kihyun will probably organize to his liking in a different spot later. "Why don't you stab me in the back already? It'd hurt less."

"Stop being dramatic," Minhyuk laughs. 

"I want to live long," Jooheon tells him, that soft whine audible in his voice. "I can't if you give me heart attacks every day."

"Well, it's not good for my heart to palpitate every time I look at you either." Minhyuk leans into his ear with really no reason, smiling. "But it does. My heart flutters all the time because you're so cute."

"Ya, cut that out," Jooheon groans and leans away, but he can't hide the grin on his face. Wide and shy, head shaking with blush-stained cheeks at Minhyuk's daft words. 

Minhyuk takes pride in this.

"I was good to you today," Jooheon reminds him again, skin glossy and bright from the night cream rubbed into his skin. He says it like he's expecting some sort of present for this. Probably a cookie. He deserves one. Minhyuk would proudly give him all the cookies he wants.

He thinks of this morning, (or maybe it was a little later in the day—Minhyuk has trouble distinguishing time intervals when all of his days seem to be in fast forward, meshed together until everything's stopped and they're back at the dorms,) with the boys sleepy and piled in the van for a broadcast. Jooheon sat beside him, and Minhyuk could barely keep his eyes opened. Head lolling off, snapping awake every few seconds before he nearly falls into the window.

Jooheon looked over at him with a small yawn and swiftly caught Minhyuk's head in his hand as he once again stolen that half-second of sleep. Wordlessly, Minhyuk was guided into his lap and lazily caressed, a gentle hand patting his back until his body relaxed, breath slowing, his head playing along that soft _thump, thump, thump_ rhythm against his back. Jooheon was good to him today, but honestly, Jooheon is always like that.

Always loving and caring, always there to make sure his hyung is all right.

Minhyuk smiles to himself and plants a wet kiss to the back of Jooheon's neck.

"Hyung-ah," Jooheon smiles. He wrangles out of Minhyuk's grip and hits him on the shoulder, backing away when the older boy moves into him again. "I'm stopping you right there."

Minhyuk pouts. "Fine."

He can always steal more kisses if he cuddles Jooheon to sleep, which he's already sure he will.

"You know," Jooheon says, suddenly, as he flicks off the light switch of the washroom. The dorm is quiet. Minhyuk's sure everyone has fallen asleep by now, except for Hoseok who is still at work in the living room, headphones on, a blue light from the laptop screen palely illuminating his still and concentrated face. Hyungwon is curled up on the couch beside him entirely devoured in a fluffy blanket. "You know," Jooheon begins again, voice lowered as they quietly shuffle past, "I don't know why you peek into my shower anyway. It'd be less weird if you just came inside."

Minhyuk stares at him. It's not bright enough to tell if Jooheon's just joking. "Really?"

"Well, yeah." He shrugs. "The other boys shower with me sometimes."

"And I've never been invited?" Minhyuk gasps. Jooheon shushes him and glances towards the living room where the light of Hoseok's laptop is still visible. As if his voice could actually wake Hyungwon, or be heard by Hoseok in work mode. But, nonetheless, he lowers it, hands on hips. "I'm offended. I should be able to see you naked way more than the others do."

"You always see me naked."

"Well, obviously not enough."

Jooheon laughs and shakes his head, pausing in front of their bedroom door. "I knew this would happen."

"What?"

"You would just make it weird, which is —"

"I barely said anything!"

"— exactly why I didn't want to mention it in the first place."

Minhyuk sighs, a small smile at his lips. "To be honest, things cannot not be weird, anyway."

Jooheon just looks at him.

"I mean, things have been sort of weird lately," he tries. "Or, I don't know, it's sort of always been weird for me."

There's a silence as Jooheon contemplates this, pink tongue swiping at his lips. "It doesn't _have_ to be weird. You make it weird."

"I do not."

"You do," Jooheon argues. "Honestly, though, I don't think it's that weird."

Minhyuk pauses, absently shaking a dark, overgrown fringe from his eyes. "No?"

"It's just," he purses his lips, "different, is all. We're not talking about the shower anymore, right?"

"We're not," Minhyuk laughs. "But different, huh? And what does that mean?"

"You know, just different," Jooheon vaguely replies.

Minhyuk grins with a curious raise of his brows. "So, you admit that you like me too?"

Jooheon reaches for the doorknob of their room, smiling mischievously when Minhyuk quickly snatches him by the wrist.

"You admit that you like me too?" he repeats.

"I never even said that."

"But is that what you meant?"

"You're just taking what is available and making it into what you want it to mean," Jooheon says, which is barely an answer to his question. His dimples are still there in his cheeks, though, teasingly, and Minhyuk sort of wants to take him by the face and kiss those smiling lips. "Let's go to sleep now."

It's the _let's_ in the sentence that sounds enough like _join me in my bed so I can be the little spoon_ that Minhyuk drops it. It's okay that Jooheon won't admit he likes him. It's difficult to tell whether he's genuinely afraid of admitting what he feels for Minhyuk, or if he just wants to be a teasing asshole since Minhyuk is obviously so head over heels for him. He'll admit his feelings easily. He could tell anyone how pretty Jooheon is, how much he likes him, and he could proudly speak on it for hours with this daft, whipped grin on his face.

Minhyuk does get to cuddle Jooheon, even though Jooheon tries to pretend he wants Minhyuk to go to his own bunk and naturally whines about it. Kihyun's exasperated grunt—translation: _the two of you better shut the fuck up before I come down from this bunk_ —is enough to silence the both of them and for Jooheon to easily curl into the chest of Minhyuk's sweatshirt, knees a little uncomfortably tucked in between Minhyuk's legs, but so warm.

 

 

 

 

. . .

 

 

 

A sleepy Jooheon is so precious and cute.

Jooheon likes to pretend that it's always Minhyuk who becomes clingy and annoying, but Jooheon can equally be just as clingy, just as annoying. 

He hides how sleepy he is until the fans are no longer in sight and he can rest his head on Hyunwoo once they've slid into the van. But Hyunwoo ends up pulling out a bag of chips, munching away loudly and reaching the arm out that Jooheon rests on to share his snack with Changkyun and Hyungwon that Jooheon ends up pulling away and tightly clinging onto Minhyuk's arm like a baby koala instead. 

Minhyuk proudly accepts this with a fond hand smoothing over Jooheon's back. Running over his short hair, playfully poking his cheek, and Jooheon just quietly snores beside him.

"Jooheon-ah," Minhyuk calls, shaking him awake once they've reached the dorms. Jooheon doesn't even react, like Minhyuk had expected from him, and it takes a few more shakes until Jooheon's even moved a little, rubbing his face into Minhyuk's shirt as if he's shaking his head to be left alone. "We're here, baby. You have to wake up now."

Jooheon groans, yawns, lazily follows Minhyuk into the dorm and clings onto him the whole way.

"You're heavy," Minhyuk complains. "You have to walk."

Jooheon rejects this with a small whine, and then whines again when Hyunwoo tries to pull him off Minhyuk. Jooheon is so cute that Minhyuk just decides to let him be dragged along, legs wobbling a little, until the staff unlocks the door and he's able to finally dump Jooheon on the couch.

 _"Hyung-ah,"_ Jooheon protests. He's so whiny. 

Minhyuk sighs and rubs Jooheon's arm, softly patting him. "I need to get ready for bed. You should get ready too."

Jooheon shoots Minhyuk a look of betrayal and cuddles a pillow he blindly takes in his arms instead. So dramatic. He should know that Minhyuk will always come back anyway.

He leaves Jooheon to his cuddle replacement and goes to their room. Changkyun has already beat him to the shower, like he'd expected, so he just rips open a new pack of cleansing tissues from the washroom sink (that are tangerine-scented for some reason, probably having to do with Hoseok) and wipes the makeup from his face. 

By the time Minhyuk is splashing water on his skin and patting it dry with a hand towel, Changkyun's still taking his time in the shower. Minhyuk can no longer see his tired eyes in the mirror through the thick steam. 

He thinks of Jooheon's words from before, how it'd be less weird if they showered together. In comparison to Minhyuk tiptoeing through the washroom door that's always left open and poking his head into the shower curtain to watch the hot water trickle down Jooheon's back, somehow still sexy even with the duck shower cap over his head, it does just make more sense for Minhyuk to come in with him.

But, anyway, he's been a little more fearful with Jooheon, despite how awful he is at showing it. The possibility of pushing it a little too much with Jooheon worries him.

Minhyuk likes to think he knows when the jokes start and when the jokes end, and he likes to think that he's good with it. But he still goes overboard sometimes, crosses the line, like Hoseok likes to say. He does try to be careful. _Tries_ , at least.

Jooheon is on his back when Minhyuk returns to the living room, shirt thrown off onto the carpet. The pillow has been neglected too, and he tries to look away in irritation, pretend as if his droopy eyes don't shine when he sees that Minhyuk has come back for him.

"You're still lying here," Minhyuk laughs. "Why haven't you washed your face yet?"

"Can't I just lie here," Jooheon whines, "with you?"

Minhyuk rolls his eyes. "Hold on, baby."

He returns with the pack of cleansing tissues and plops beside Jooheon whose eyes are now closed. His eyeliner is smudged so Minhyuk starts there, wiping away the black around his eyes and brown lightly smeared on his lids. 

Jooheon breathes softly, lying still and cherubic with barely so much of a tremble of his eyes. "Wow," he breathes, "this is awesome."

Minhyuk chuckles and gets a cleansing tissue for his other eye, wiping away assiduously with Jooheon's cheeks gently held in his palm, and he just receives it with a pleased smile cutely sliding on his thick lips, unmoving so Minhyuk can finish. It takes two other small, cleansing wipes before Minhyuk has cleaned off the white powder and milky foundation to Jooheon's gleaming, tan skin.

He can never get over how beautiful Jooheon looks when he's barefaced. After a long day when he's sat on the bunk across from Minhyuk's, yawning quietly and wiping his makeup off with a cleansing wipe. When it's morning and Jooheon's rummaging through the cabinets for breakfast, his eyes fogged and squinted with sleepiness, so pretty without even having to try.

"I can take you up on that offer before," Minhyuk tells him. He tosses the cleansing wipes aside that he'll probably forget about and piss off Kihyun, and finally does as Jooheon has been waiting for, snuggling into his back, an arm draping over his waist. "Showering with you, that is."

"I knew you would bring that up again."

"You think I'd forget?" He smiles against his ear and teasingly pinches a hand at his waist, intentionally where it's too close to his ass.

Jooheon doesn't even wince. "Maybe," he answers.

"Maybe?" Minhyuk exclaims, widely grinning.

"Maybe," he says, again, knocking Minhyuk's hand off his waist. "If you stop being desperate."

"So, never?" Jooheon laughs. "Will you tell me you like me at least?"

"I never said that I like you," Jooheon reminds him.

"Which is why I want to hear it." Minhyuk reaches for his waist again just for Jooheon to knock his hand away. "Ya, what happened to clingy Honey?"

"You made him wait too long."

Minhyuk huffs, and Jooheon lets out a quiet laugh, spreading the pink blush on his pretty, round cheeks. He turns around so that they're facing each other and tucks a hand under his face in a way that squishes his cheek, makes him appear more like a baby than he already is. Minhyuk's baby.

"You like me," Minhyuk tells him, like it's a scientific fact, and Jooheon says nothing, just chuckles, and kisses him. A soft, shy peck, and Minhyuk feels his body flood with a warmth so hot, his body a little numb, heart beating so wildly in his chest that he feels as if any minute it'll just stop.

"That's new," Minhyuk breathes.

Jooheon sheepishly smiles, face pink, before grabbing Minhyuk's arm and wrapping it around his waist. Minhyuk holds him tight without even having to register it through his mind and buries his face in his neck where it's warm and smells of tangerines, hand smoothing over his back. Jooheon giggles and rests his chin on Minhyuk's head, fingers brushing over his dark hair so softly and affectionately that Minhyuk can only melt into him.

And he knows he doesn't really need to hear Jooheon tell him that he likes him. Sometimes, it's like he already has.


End file.
